Meet my alter-ego, the other Miss Ev: EV is short for Electric Vehicle; this little lady belongs to the local power company, and zips around town from time to time as a conversation piece and vehicle (pardon the pun) for publicity. Here’s my own car, with its personalized license plate: I do wish the state […]
Category: Musings about Language and Life
My version of “what’s it all about anyway?”
Coffee apocalypse
When the zombie apocalypse comes, how will I get my coffee? It’s a question of concern to me. I began enjoying coffee at the then-tender age of nineteen. I worked at Clinkerdagger, Bickerstaff, and Petts, affectionately known as Clink’s, which was a theme restaurant in midtown Anchorage. One of our perks was free coffee. Having […]
Sewing machines, past and present
When I was growing up, it was cost effective for my mother to make our dresses. I would go with her to the fabric store and make my choice. We would bring the fabric home and she would wash it and hang it on the outdoor clothesline. When I was really little I would play […]
In deference to spiders
I grew up around spiders. My grandfather built the house in 1921, complete with a damp musty cellar in which we stored, among other things, firewood. That corner of the cellar was the domain and realm of the so-called “wood spiders,” hairy and fast-moving and about the size of a medium-sized mouse. Apropos of nothing, […]
I am going to learn how to use this magic. . .
As a beginning reader I was unable to hear the difference between the words “magician” and “musician.” Why, I wondered, with the apparently infinite combinations of letters and sounds, would we use the same collection to describe these two differing occupations? When I first approached the door of my first-grade classroom, trying to hide behind […]
Gilding the lily
I started wearing makeup at sixteen, which was the age at which my mother would shake her head in disapproval but not actively interfere. I got my ears pierced that same year (same scenario). I got it done at one of those mall kiosks, and I almost fainted afterwards. As I left the booth, my […]
Adventures in losing things
I spend a fair amount of time looking for my stuff. My phone is the most common item to go missing, followed by my keys, my coat, my glasses, my purse, and my cup of coffee. I live in a big house, and I tend to set things down without being fully aware of my […]
In praise of bright colors
As a lady of a certain age, I want to be fashion-conscious. Perish the thought that I should wear things that would look better on someone younger. On several occasions I have searched online for “fashions for fifty-plus woman,” or “what to wear after fifty.” Never mind that from that day forward, every time I […]
Call me anything but late for dinner.
I am waiting in the chair for the dentist to come pull a tooth; this is my first such experience since all four wisdom teeth at age nineteen. At nineteen I was pretty much awed by medical people in general, and I willingly accepted the basic inequity of “Dr. Jones,” and “Evelyn” as mutual forms […]